Of Interest
The Wheelwright Collection in the Thoreau Society Collections

The Wheelwright Collection consists of five manuscripts donated to the Thoreau Society by the Wheelwright Family. Of note is the unpublished traced map of Cape Cod, in Thoreau's hand, which he copied from Alexander Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth, from 1602-1625.

Also included in the collection, on loan from the Wheelwright Family, is the four-volume 1838 edition of Thomas Carlyle's Critical and Miscellaneous Essays presented to Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Collection Summary

Creator: The Wheelwright Family

Title: The Wheelwright Collection in the Thoreau Society Collections

Abstract: This collection consists of Thoreau-related materials owned by the Wheelwright Family. Manuscripts are a gift of the Wheelwright Family to the Thoreau Society. Books are on loan from the Wheelwright Family to the Thoreau Society

Manuscripts:

  • Map, 11 x 18.5 cm., traced from Alexander Young’s Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth: From 1602-1625
  • ALS, Henry D. Thoreau to George Thatcher, 16 March 1849; with ALS, Sophia Thoreau to Rebecca Thatcher
  • ALS, Henry D. Thoreau to H.G.O. Blake, 27 June 1855; 2nd leaf missing and replaced with transcription in the hand of B.B. Thatcher
  • ALS, John Sartain to Horace Greeley, 24 March 1852
  • ALS, Mary Stearns to Henry D. Thoreau, 23 February 1862

Books:

  • Carlyle, Thomas. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (Boston: James Munroe andCo., 1838) 4 v.
    • Vol. 1 signed: “Henry D Thoreau from R.W.E.” 
                                 “B B Thatcher from S.E.T.”
    • Vol. 2-4 signed: “Henry. D. Thoreau”

 

 

 

 

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Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without. — A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

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